Over the years, technology has been slow to develop for heavy duty vehicles for various reasons. For example, much of the technology involves heavy mechanical systems which can be difficult to translate to electronic software based systems. Also, there have been little or no standards in electronic systems for these types of vehicles. Further, many of these heavy duty vehicles include tractor/trailers-type vehicles or trucks which often involve an owner who owns a fleet of these vehicles. Accordingly, because these vehicles are often already on the road or in use, it can be expensive and difficult to retrofit existing vehicles. Meanwhile, manufacturers of new vehicles also are hesitant to install advanced equipment because of the expense and the fear of acceptance by drivers and others in the industry.
Nevertheless, some data communications standards for heavy duty vehicles have arisen over the years, such as Society of Automotive Engineering ("SAE") standard J1708 and SAE standard J1939. Accordingly, more and more electronic and software systems are slowly being accepted. The fluid distribution industry, however, has been even more slow to accept these technology changes. For example, not only for the reasons set forth above exist, but these industries also often involve potentially dangerous or explosive materials, e.g., petroleum based fuels, which emit fumes that can readily ignite if an electrical spark or other type of spark initiates surrounding fumes.
Some data communications systems for heavy duty vehicles that have been adopted include built in data communication terminals mounted in the cab of heavy duty tractor trailer vehicles. Examples of such systems can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 4,313,168 by Stephens et al. titled "Fluid Register System," U.S. Pat. No. 5,204,819 by Ryan titled "Fluid Delivery Control Apparatus," and U.S. Pat. No. 5,359,522 by Ryan titled "Fluid Delivery Control Apparatus." These prior patents, however, fail to appreciate the need for systematic monitoring and controlling of fuel distribution and data communications for such distribution and fail to appreciate the need for careful handling of such data communication systems especially in potentially explosive or environmentally hazardous fluid distribution environments. Further, these prior systems also fail to appreciate driver constraints when receiving instructions for deliveries, making deliveries, and loading and unloading fluid at various delivery and receiving sites.